NASA records our Sun producing a massive fiery coronal rain loop

The video you see above was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s AIA instrument at a rate of one frame every 12 seconds. It plays back at 30 frames per second, meaning every second accounts for 6 minutes of actual time passed. Such a low rate of capture doesn’t do anything to detract from the spectacle on display, though.

What you are watching is actually three major eruptive events occurring on the surface of our Sun. First you get to see a solar flare, then there’s a coronal mass ejection, and finally there’s the massive coronal rain loop.

A solar flare is a very large energy release and can be seen as a brightening on the surface of the Sun. This leads into the coronal mass ejection, which sees a burst of solar wind and magnetic fields launched into space. Finally, we get the main event of the video–the fiery coronal rain loop.

NASA describes this as cooling plasma being forced to travel along very strong magnetic fields above the surface of the Sun. The image below shows you just how big these loops are compared to the size of the Earth:

It’s actually been a while since this was captured. The footage was recorded over the course of just under 10 hours on July 19 last year, but has only now been released for us to watch. It also puts into perspective the amount of energy contained in our Sun when NASA describes this event as including only a “moderately powerful solar flare.”